Published in News

Dating site tried to fix up married woman

by on25 November 2014



With data it nicked from Facebook

A dating site tried to fix up a married Toronto woman without her permission using a data lifted from Facebook. Mari Sherkin has been married for more than 25 years, but she started getting hundreds of emails from men who wanted to date her. The men had found Sherkin's profile on Zoosk.com which had apparently created a profile for her using data and a photo taken from Facebook.

It all started when Sherkin says she got a pop-up ad on Facebook from Zoosk.com, she clicked on X to close it, but it brought her to the Zoosk site. Which she closed. Within minutes, she started getting messages in her Facebook inbox from men. Sherkin says she was horrified to see the dating profile, which used her Facebook photo, her name and her postal code.

There are many similar complaints online from women who say they have no idea how a dating profile was created for them on Zoosk.  So, by logging in with Facebook, for example, you automatically agree to share your private information with other websites. Zoosk has said that under "NO circumstances do we take Facebook data to create a Zoosk profile without a user’s express permission". However, its terms and conditions allow it to do that.

"By accessing or using our services through a social networking site, you are authorizing Zoosk to collect, store, retain and use, in accordance with our privacy policy, any and all of your information that Zoosk has obtained from the social networking site, including to create a Zoosk profile page and account for you."

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